


Aay'han

by SacredPanda



Series: The Hunt [5]
Category: Exalted, Star Wars Legends: Republic Commando Series - Karen Traviss
Genre: Backstory, Bittersweet, Child Abandonment, Comforting, Family Death, Heartbreak, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 07:47:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13700061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SacredPanda/pseuds/SacredPanda
Summary: Roxil learns a word even the Gemstone of Spoken Language struggles with, he only has to endure some of his most painful memories.





	Aay'han

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, this is pretty much all backstory. I got my hands on all Corsenna's character creation notes and bits and pieces of backstory as well as some background she's posted on the forum page and Roxil's backstory in full is just so heartbreaking that to me it makes his (generally) positive personality so much more potent.

The sun was shining down into the clearing in the massive forest, the air was warm and the breeze was cool. It was good to be home. Roxil had been back for nearly a year after his self-imposed exile in the Wyld that had stretched to five centuries. He looked down at the sleeping child in his arms, only three weeks old, and gently brushed his hands against the silky fur. It wasn’t unusual for his children to have some animal traits, he always thought it made them even more beautiful. The infant cooed quietly when he tapped it’s nose with the tip of his finger.  
“Luka,” He said suddenly, nearly a whisper so he wouldn’t wake the baby. “I’ll call him Luka.”  
“Luka,” The boy’s mother agreed with a smile. This was Roxil’s first child since returning from the Wyld. In the midst of such a perfect moment he wondered how he could have resisted returning to Creation for so long. He didn’t want to let go of the child, studying every detail of his peaceful sleeping face, but the mother would be insisting on feeding him soon. If he didn’t let go now he feared he never would.  
“Take little Luka before I find myself running off with him,” The mother took the child away and kissed Roxil’s cheek lightly before leaving. He closed his eyes to relax in the sunlight filtering between the leaves, leaning back against the massive root of the tree. When he opened his eyes again he found that he had been dozing in the barracks, the heat was just from a radiator helping freshly cleaned armor plates dry faster. His perfect moment was ruined.  
“Everything alright, _ner vod_?” Jatne gave him that look, the one that said he already knew Roxil was upset. They had been quite good friends from the moment Roxil found him in the Wyld. He had been pulled through a Rift and dropped outside the borders of Creation. The Wyld was the last place a mortal should ever be. Fortunately Roxil found him, and brought him immediately to a safe haven, his mentors artificial pocket of Creation in the Middlemarches. The language barrier had been difficult at first, and Jatne highly overestimated Roxil’s level of intelligence when the Lunar seemed to pick up Basic rather easily. As it turned out he wasn’t all that smart at all, but he was still a good man and very _ori’beskaryc_ \- really tough. Either way he formed a powerful bond with the Lunar the moment his life was saved, Roxil had spared him an unknown amount of terrible mutations from exposure to the Wyld.  
“ _Ori’jate_ , perfect _ner vod_.” He knew the raised eyebrow meant Jatne saw through his lie. This particular Null had never shown an interest in a physical relationship with Roxil, he really was like a brother. He shrugged, but Jatne wasn’t going to give up. “I’ve been dreaming of home,” Of course Jatne knew how that felt, Roxil thought it would be rude to whine when Jatne hadn’t handled his year in Shishimisi so well. It could have been worse, it was Maaki’s turn awake while Tawasu slept for two centuries and Maaki was always more fun.  
“I was told you could hear your people, even though you were so deep in the Wyld… but I was with you when you went back… you never got to actually see them.”  
“Their prayers, I heard them in my mind and it was all that held me together for so many years. When I started my exile I believed I was undeserving of their devotion. If that were true, they never would have kept praying for generations. It proved to show me I had to step up, to continue the path Luna set me on, to be the god that they needed. I was finally ready to do just that… but far more I wanted to be a father again. You have no idea, maybe one day you will. There’s so much joy looking down at your child, seeing them grow. I remember when my first child was six, he would play with the toddlers, the ten that were only between two and four. Hearing them laugh would make me smile even in my darkest moods. Even the ones that carried the Terrestrial blood of my biological parents.”  
“You’ve never mentioned your parents before,”  
“I never knew them.” He _really_ didn’t want to tell this story, it led to his most painful memory.  
“ _Jate gehat’ik, vod_ ” _Good story,_ he was mocking Roxil. It was obvious he didn’t intend to be mean, but the Nulls had an irresistible urge to know _everything_. “ _Rejorhaa’ir ni_? Gedet’ye?”  
“I’m a bit _gedin’la, ner vod_ ,” _In a mood_ , it wasn’t a lie. The last full moon had been so disappointing, and being suddenly reminded of what he didn’t have here wasn’t helping.  
“Let’s talk about it cat. How often did you press me about where I came from? If you answer with anything other than ‘every time I stopped by Shishimisi’ you’ll be a liar. I was often a little _gedin’la_ myself but _buir_ always said it doesn’t do you good to keep it in.” He was right, of course. More words of wisdom from the great _Kal’buir_ , he didn’t like Roxil much but the Lunar still couldn’t figure out why. The Nulls quoted the man constantly, the idolized him and somehow that made the man’s disapproval of Roxil more upsetting.  
“He’s not wrong,” And now Jaing shows up, despite his strength and speed Roxil suddenly felt very boxed in.  
“ _Ijobu_!” Only Jatne would understand, he had heard that language everyday for a year. “Alright, fine. “ _Atin’la shabuire_! There was a man called Woneyii Malor, he must have chosen the most miserable day. The sky was so thickly clouded it could have been night and the ground was drenched from pouring rain. I only know this because the woman that found me took delight in telling the story, so often I remember every detail to this day. He wore a heavy cloak that concealed his face, but he failed to notice the woman that recognized the Woneyii crest on his back. He was a well known general in the Dragon Blooded army, he had vast properties on the Blessed Isle and so much wealth his servants had servants. He wandered miles from the port on the mainland near the frozen boundaries of the north and dropped a dirty wad cloth in the lee of some trees.’  
‘Naturally the woman had to see what had been left after the General made off through the brutal wind. Despite his endless resources, what the woman found left half in a thick pool of mud was an infant boy that couldn’t have been more than a week old. Had she not found him, he surely would have died quickly. She brought him back to the farm she owned with her husband. Sounds like a heartwarming end to the abandonment of an innocent child, doesn’t it? Well surely it would be, if she hadn’t brought him back to grow as a slave. One of theirs had lost an infant and husband both to illness three weeks prior and that child would have been another slave they didn’t need to purchase when it was older.’  
‘Illya was a wonderful and loving mother to me. She was so kind and showed me a love as though I had been her own. I grew strong, no doubt a trait of my heritage by the time I was six I was already working the farm. By the time I was eight I was taking on most of my mothers work as well as my own. She had fallen ill, our living conditions were awful and our food was worse, she wasn’t the only slave that had gone sickly. It didn’t matter that I was handling most of the work on the farm and in our shed myself, it didn’t matter, the owners wanted to fresh stock of new slaves. They couldn’t afford it, but if they could prove need they could plead with local lords.’  
‘I was young enough that I could have been sold off, but I had my fathers face and his portrait was hung nearly everywhere Dragon Blooded gathered, no one would have dared buy me. So, when we were locked in the shed for the night as usual I remained with the people that had become my family. I was with them when we all began to notice it was warmer than it should have been, there was a glow we could see through the shuddered window, it wasn’t long before we could hear the crackling flames and smell the smoke. They likely planned to claim we caused the fire, they’d probably be awarded a hefty sum for our negligence.” He stopped and took a deep breath. He was biting his lip, one of his feline-like fangs breaking the skin causing a thin trickle of blood. The look in his eyes was far away from this room, lost in a memory he wished he could forget. It was the hand on his shoulder that brought him back to the present.  
“Ro’ika?” He hadn’t noticed the others enter but Prudii looked concerned, even Ordo seemed troubled by his pain.  
“They managed to get me out the window, I burned quite badly but I was free.” He choked back a silent sob. “I tried so hard to break the door, the wall, anything I could. I beat my hands against the wood until I could smell my own flesh searing. I could only hear the screams of everyone I loved as they burned to death. I was far too weak, all I could do was run. I ran and ran just kept running because I feared that if I stopped it would all overwhelm me. I didn’t stop until my body collapsed without my permission. I had so hoped exhaustion would overtake me, force me to sleep, it was too much to hope for. When I closed my eyes I could see the flames and smell the smoke. I could hear the screams and know my mother was dead.’  
‘When we met, and I said you stop thinking about the mortality when it’s all you can do… I was just a boy, barely scraps for clothes and burns over all my body, I was an outcast in every village I found. My only choice was to be a thief. I was good at it, I was actually pretty great at it and I got better every day. I had no choice if I wanted to survive and I _had_ to because my family had worked so hard to free me. It would be an insult if I gave up, I’d be giving up on everything they ever did for me. But there you have it, I had a mother, a very good one. The one that gave birth to me, I never met her, I never knew my father. For whatever reason, they decided I was unwanted. From the moment they made that decision I was doomed to experience I pain for which I have no words.” Tears were streaming down his face, he may have been over five hundred years old, but he clearly remembered those early years with perfect clarity.  
The Nulls’ hearts broke for him, they had been sentenced to death and they had experienced hardship, but they had never lost their family. They had been an arms reach from each other their whole lives. Not one of them could imagine carrying those memories for so long. It was easy to see where his _ori’beskaryc_ mindset had come from, it was built from necessity. He had to be strong just to keep himself going.  
Roxil didn’t want to tell the whole story, but how could he simply say he was abandoned? They never would have accepted such a succinct explanation. He regretted it now, they looked at him with something very much like pity. He had worked much too hard for that, he couldn’t stand to be pitied. It only made him angry to see that in their eyes. They all shifted quite suddenly though.  
“ _Ori’kandosii, ner vod_ ” Jatne was the first to break the silence. “Maaki said you were troubled, but you never told her why and she wouldn’t have told me even if she knew. , that must be so much pain to hold on to, you don’t show it. You keep going every day like you’ve only ever known joy. You really let the good moments carry you.”  
“ _Aay’han_!” Jaing smiled kindly. “You still love them so deeply, but you don’t let the loss overpower you. Bittersweet, mourning and happiness, a perfect moment of remembering even as you find new joy.”  
“ _Aay’han_ ,” Roxil repeated, the gemstone of spoken language struggled with the word, his mental image of its meaning failing him. It seemed such a complex concept but somehow it still made perfect sense to him. It would, he had lived it every day. Jaing hugged him in a way that uncharacteristically tender and it broke every defense Roxil had built up to hold him together through the memories. He couldn’t stop the tears, he couldn’t stand to close his eyes for fear of the visions that had plagued his sleep for years. He thought to try to escape the embrace, to hide until he pulled himself together, if he honestly had tried no human would have been able to stop him; for no logical reason he simply couldn’t break Jaing’s grip. He was powerless for the first time in centuries and just let himself melt into the arms. They stayed that way for several minutes, but for all Roxil cared it had been hours. Finally he found the will to move and peeled Jaing's arms away. "Don't ever look at me that way again."  
"Sorry?"  
"That ... was that pity?"  
"It probably was. Only for a moment. You have to understand it's hard for us to be kind," They wouldn't have much experience comforting others. They knew each other as well as themselves but when it came to others, it was all guesswork. "I didn't mean it, but... we had a father that _chose_ us. He's gone through hell to give us our lives. When we think of someone who's father left them to die..." That look was back for the quickest of instants. "You know you're _aliit_ , right?"  
"Clan," It didn't seem to make Roxil happy. "Jaing, that's wonderful it really is, it's fantastic. But Jaing, I want a child and I don't know that any of you are ready or willing to give me that." He seemed to have caught the Null off guard.  
"Roxil, we're men." Ah, that was the misunderstanding.  
"You are, you're beautiful strong men. Marvelous, _kandosii'la, mesh'la,_ and perfectly brilliant. _I_ am whatever I want or need to be." He grinned. "There's a reason I said I liked the Mando'a word _buir_ so much, it really fits me perfectly." Silver seemed to run down his skin out of his tattoos, pooling on the ground and forming into a second body, a female. Prudii and Mereel both obviously recognized it. "I can wear even a false shape for as long as I choose, but this _is_ my true form it's just ... altered. It is _fully_ functional. Nine of my children were made this way. Jaing I don't need you to actually _be_ a father if you're not ready. I'm fully prepared to raise a child myself, I just-"  
" _Nu draar_ absolutely not." Jaing was pissed, Roxil had never seen him so angry. "If I were ever to agree to be a child I absolute _would_ be a father. Do you understand nothing of Mandalorians?"  
"I know, I do. I just feel better presenting all the options ... Jaing I need this." Roxil felt a pang of regret, he was dangerously close to deceiving Jaing, he promised he would never lie to them. Was omission really lying? He wasn't prepared to take that risk. "You should know, my children... they aren't always _entirely_ human. They often take on some of my traits, fur, tails, sometimes things from my Heart's Blood library, and if I've kept count correctly it seems about one in ten carry the Terrestrial blood from my parents."  
"One in ten, how many have you had? And what do you mean by Terrestrial blood, you've said that twice now." Jaing got nervous when Roxil's expression turned sheepish and he didn't answer right away.


End file.
